We are somewhere between the old bipolar Cold War world, which we generally understood, and to which most of the rest of the world had adjusted, and something else, we know not what. The consequent chaos and uncertainty is remarkable, especially after the long peace and stable international environment that followed the Second World War. That is the underlying cause of an entire generation of leaders who either are obviously unable to master their challenges, or are applying ideological models from the recent past that are embarrassing anachronisms. Leaders like Putin, or Obama, or Mursi, for example, trot out various explanations for their behavior, but the explanations don’t “fit” the real conditions they are dealing with.
To be sure, there’s a comic side to the spectacle: the oracular class confidently laying out scenarios, most of which will be proven wrong in very short order. Can you count the number or times you have read a presumably well-informed prediction of the Israeli assault on Iran? Or stories of clandestine U.S. military actions inside the Islamic Republic? Or detailed analyses of the Iranian nuclear program, based on IAEA data, at least some of which, the head of the Iranian program has said, were lies?
So the oracles are unreliable, just as we should expect. Whenever some captain of industry asks me to do a “risk assessment” for him, I tell him to save his money for blackjack or craps; the odds are better than betting on my–or anyone else’s–crystal ball.
But businessmen and policy makers have to make decisions, and the stakes are often enormous. What to do?
When the old rules crumble, all we’ve got to go on are basic principles, which are most often in conflict with our desires, especially in the current politically correct, multiculti world of the oracles. We do not want to face the most basic fact about the real world, which is that a war is raging, and we are a prime target. We do not want to fight back, and so we are weakening ourselves, denying the existence of fanatical enemies, retreating from Middle East battlefields (thereby ensuring greater casualties, and stronger and more confident hostile forces, whether jihadi or radical leftist). The most recent case in point comes from the president and UN Ambassador Susan Rice and of course the hapless Hillary, when they say that attacks against Americans aren’t attacks against Americans at all, but attacks against a video.
And, lest we forget, such denials are echoed viciously by the leading media, who have long since ceased reporting about the real world in favor of promulgating the fantasyland of their fellow oracles. As I predicted last time, this did not earn them respect or honor from the American people. And that’s good news.
Even though Obama’s would-be successor does not seem to grasp the urgency of the moment, the American people seem to me to have a better grasp of things. You can spin all you want about government-managed statistics, but in our homes and schools, real Americans know that things are very bad. You can concoct all the fantasies you want about crazed killers of Americans, real Americans see the bloodshed and know that we are under assault. And I believe that we will make all that clear on election day. I know Romney’s not a great candidate, but he’s not Obama, and that’s the only issue.
I wish Romney would stop listening to the campaign managers, and listen more to his gut, which drove him to make a good, strong statement when our guys were attacked and killed in Egypt and Libya. I hope he finds the courage to speak truth to power in the next few weeks, and calls out this shameful administration for its fecklessness, its betrayal of our troops and our people, and its amazingly insouciant willigness to invent a new fable most every day. That would give us some hope that a President Romney might be able to navigate the tsunami approaching our civilization.
And yes, even master it. I think we’re ready to engage the war for our future. The bad guys have had a long, free run at us. Time to get serious.
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